Look, I wish just as much as you do that Albuquerque were overrun with fabulous Jewish delis where you could pick up a quart of whitefish salad for Sunday brunch. I'd love to have a neighborhood full of Italian restaurants that made their own pasta and fought with each other over which served the best cannoli. Who wouldn't love to wander around Albuquerque's version of Chinatown and wander from storefront to storefront nibbling on egg rolls, buns and things we couldn't pronounce? But this is New Mexico, not New York, Chicago or San Francisco. You people who harass me about the lack of lox at your corner coffee cart seem to forget that you moved away from the big city to get away from it all, and sadly, “it all” includes blue crabs and cheese curds. If every city had every other city's culinary treasures then no place would be very special, would it? If Boston had green chile, then our friends who moved there wouldn't come back as often, would they? No and no. So when you go to New Orleans you should eat all the étouffée you can. Hopefully you'll enjoy every minute of it. And when you get back you'll really appreciate your stacked blue corn and beef enchiladas with an over easy egg, red chile and extra onions.

La Montañita Coop will proceed with plans to take over Santa Fe's Marketplace Natural Grocery. My previous story on the subject incorrectly stated that the proposed deal would be subject to a vote by the membership. In fact, the decision on whether or not to bring the Marketplace under La Montañita's wing was made by the coop's board of directors. According to the Coop's Michelle Franklin, three community meetings the Coop hosted in Albuquerque and Santa Fe during October garnered enough positive feedback for the board to give the project the green light. Franklin says the deal is moving ahead slowly but that papers should be signed by January 2005. The Marketplace is now privately owned by Jill Markstein; by joining with La Montañita, it would become, like the coop, community-owned.

Instant, quick or old-fashioned, the words on the label make a big difference

By Gwyneth Doland

Organic instant oatmeal. Here is one instance in which doing what I thought was the right thing was a terrible, terrible mistake. Now I've got a pound of the stuff and I'll use it to spackle the holes in my kitchen walls before I eat another bowl of that gummy goop. Where did I go wrong? Well, it wasn't the organic part, I'm fairly sure, so it must have been the instant part.

What to do with all those extra pumpkins after Halloween

By Gwyneth Doland

You buy one, your roommate buys one, then your mom brings one over ... next thing you know you've got three pumpkins on the stoop and not one of them's been carved. You can't just let them rot. Cook with them! Here are a handful of recipes culled from new cookbooks that won't make you think of pumpkin pie and won't ruin Thanksgiving a month early.